Take away a troll's source of power--anonymity--and the online commenter will think twice before posting on a blog or forum.

A study released Wednesday by online commenting platform Livefyre finds 40% of respondents have commented anonymously. Surveying 1,300 people, the company found of those anonymous commenters:
■88% use real identities some of the time
■5% comment anonymously to bully others
■78% of people who comment anonymously won't do so under their real identities

Unsurprisingly, Livefyre used this as an opportunity to show the benefits of anonymous comments--and plug features, such as comment moderation. For marketers, giving users the option to be incognito ultimately means more engagement. If they weren't under the veil of anonymity, nearly 80% of these commenters would keep their opinions to themselves. In addition, Livefyre said there's still value in anonymous remarks. Of respondents, 59% said they view anonymous comments equal to or more valuable than those from people with verified identities.

What the company recommends is for publishers to post their community guidelines prominently and to give users who add value to online discussions moderation responsibilities. Livefyre also encourages publishers to join the conversation, a subtle reminder to trolls they're always listening.

If you watch porn online, the computer you're using is enough to determine whether you're a premature ejaculator there to watch Lisa Ann squirting videos, or whether you're a long-lasting lover on a quest for Indian MILFs. That's according to Pornhub, who has just spooged out an entire sack's worth of statistics on their users, proving that Windows users statistically browse porn differently than Mac users, and even people on game consoles love watching porn.

Here's some of the key takeaways, courtesy of Gizmodo and the Pornhub Insights team:

• Chances are, if you're visiting Pornhub, you're on Windows. 85.5% of all Pornhub visitors are running Windows, while 6.64% of desktops run OS X.

Of course, when it comes to jerking it to your tablet, nothing beats iPad: 77.38% of all tablet users watch porn on iOS.

• Millions of people browsing Pornhub every month come in via their Internet-connected video game consoles, although around 87% of that traffic comes from just two consoles: the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360.

The conventional wisdom behind forceful crowd control deserves a review of its own. Rather than passively controlling a protest, heavy riot gear actively changes the dynamics of crowd behavior, according to the best new behavioral evidence. The twisted outcome is one that too many police forces have yet to learn: the military-style equipment intended to enhance public safety often ends up threatening it.

Let's step back a moment to the classic psychological theory on crowds, which gave rise to many of the tougher approaches taken today. Originating during the political instability of 19th-century France, and later adopted by most 20th-century social scientists, this thinking held that people in a crowd lost their individuality and became suggestible to the aggressive behavior of those around them. That view gave rise to phrases like "mob mentality" and "deindividuation"--the idea of a crowd as a singular entity rather than a collection of independent people capable of thinking for themselves.

Here's where the militarization of local police becomes so problematic. Officers in full-on riot gear give all the individuals in a protest crowd a common enemy. It's not that everyone in the protest crowd suddenly assumes the identity of a violent jerk--it's that the many peaceful protestors feel a sort of kinship with the violent jerks against the aggressive police. Despite their differences, they're united by a single goal: defend against the outside force.

Psychologist Clifford Stott surveyed the latest evidence on crowd behavior in a 2009 report for British officials. Stott explained that an aggressive approach by authorities leads "directly to a change in the nature of the crowd's social identity," a shift from me and you into us and them. The result is a self-fulfilling cycle: As the crowd gains a sense of unity, the authorities become more aggressive against the unified mob they initially feared, which in turn enhances the crowd's sense of unity. Any rioting that results will be perceived as an inevitable outcome of bad crowd behavior, writes Stott, when in fact that behavior was "largely and inadvertently initiated by police tactical responses."

Coming off a year of record sales, the gun market is cooling off. And overeager gunmakers are still struggling to dial down their expectations.
In the recent quarter, Smith & Wesson sales dropped 23 percent, to $131.9 million, and profit plunged 45 percent, to $14.6 million, according to a report late yesterday. Long guns and “modern sporting rifles,” in particular, lost favor among shooters, but handguns cooled off as well. Smith & Wesson shares slumped almost 15 percent on the news.

The problem, according to both companies, is too many guns. Executives are grousing about “high inventory,” stubborn retail partners, and a glut of guns in such stores as Cabela’s. They are less eager to acknowledge that high inventory in any business comes from only two places: low demand and/or too much supply.

What the industry really needs is a few lawmakers advocating a gun-control bill. That’s what pushed the gun business to record highs last year in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings. Those fears, however, have largely abated, and gun sales have gone with them. Even reports of ammunition shortages are dying off.